Integrating lines of research on children's curiosity-driven learning.

Epistemic curiosity is considered indispensable in children's learning, but previous empirical research on children's curiosity-driven learning has been fragmented; separate research lines tend to focus on single learning outcomes. Therefore, this study aimed at integrating different research lines by adapting an existing paradigm to investigate not only the relation between children's state curiosity and their memory performance but also their desire to explore. In addition, this study examined a possible mechanism through which curiosity affects recall: increased attentional processes.

Parental Pre-knowledge Enhances Guidance During Inquiry-Based Family Learning in a Museum Context: An Individual Differences Perspective.

Effective interaction and inquiry are an essential source for children's learning about science in an informal context. This study investigated the effect of parental pre-knowledge on parent-child interactions (manipulations, parent talk, and child talk) during an inquiry activity in NEMO Science Museum in Amsterdam. The sample included 105 parent-child dyads (mean children's age = 10.

Cognitive flexibility training has direct and near transfer effects, but no far transfer effects, in preschoolers.

The current project studied the direct, near transfer, and far transfer effects of cognitive flexibility training in two experiments with 117 3-year-olds. In both Experiments 1 and 2, children performed three Dimensional Change Card Sorting (DCCS) tasks in a pre-training/training/post-training design. The training consisted of giving corrective feedback in the training DCCS task.

Children's Mental Models of Prenatal Development.

Children's thinking about prenatal development requires reasoning about change that cannot be observed directly. How do children gain knowledge about this topic? Do children have mental models or is their knowledge fragmented? In Experiment 1, results of a forced-choice questionnaire about prenatal development (6- to 13-year-olds; = 317) indicated that children do have a variety of coherent, grade-related, theories about early shape of the fetus, but not about bodily functions. Coherence of the mental models was enhanced by a preceding generative task.

Investigating the development of causal inference by studying variability in 2- to 5-year-olds' behavior.

This study investigated the development of young children's causal inference by studying variability in behavior. Two possible sources of variability, strategy use and accuracy in strategy execution, were discriminated and related to age. To this end, a relatively wide range of causal inference trials was administered to children of a relatively broad age range: 2- to 5-year-olds.

Preschoolers perform more informative experiments after observing theory-violating evidence.

This study investigated the effect of evidence conflicting with preschoolers' naive theory on the patterns of their free exploratory play. The domain of shadow size was used--a relatively complex, ecologically valid domain that allows for reliable assessment of children's knowledge. Results showed that all children who observed conflicting evidence performed an unconfounded informative experiment in the beginning of their play, compared with half of the children who observed confirming evidence.

Children balance theories and evidence in exploration, explanation, and learning.

We look at the effect of evidence and prior beliefs on exploration, explanation and learning. In Experiment 1, we tested children both with and without differential prior beliefs about balance relationships (Center Theorists, mean: 82 months; Mass Theorists, mean: 89 months; No Theory children, mean: 62 months). Center and Mass Theory children who observed identical evidence explored the block differently depending on their beliefs.

The dynamics of development on the Dimensional Change Card Sorting task.

A widely used paradigm to study cognitive flexibility in preschoolers is the Dimensional Change Card Sorting (DCCS) task. The developmental dynamics of DCCS performance was studied in a cross-sectional design (N = 93, 3 to 5 years of age) using a computerized version of the standard DCCS task. A model-based analysis of the data showed that development on the DCCS task is best described as a discontinuous change in performance on the post-switch phase of the task.

Stimulus set size and statistical coverage of the grammar in artificial grammar learning.

Adults and children acquire knowledge of the structure of their environment on the basis of repeated exposure to samples of structured stimuli. In the study of inductive learning, a straightforward issue is how much sample information is needed to learn the structure. The present study distinguishes between two measures for the amount of information in the sample: set size and the extent to which the set of exemplars statistically covers the underlying structure.